Movies

Last week, Jennifer Lawrence shared an anecdote on The Graham Norton Show about the time she desecrated a sacred formation of rocks while filming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in Hawaii. While stuck in a wet suit for filming, Lawrence explained that in order to relieve some pernicious itching, she scratched her butt so vigorously against one of the rocks that it dislodged from the formation and fell down a steep incline. Shortly after the clip made a viral run online, people started criticizing Lawrence for her lack of regard for the culturally significant land features, which prompted a response from the actress this afternoon on her Facebook page.

On December 8, at the iconic Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles, Vulture hosted its inaugural Awards Season Party to toast the year’s best performances in film and TV, and New York Magazine’s first-ever Oscars-themed issue. Prestige film talent like New York cover star Natalie Portman, who plays the title character in Pablo Larraín’s critically acclaimed Jackie, Moonlight’s breakout actor Ashton Sanders, and Lion’s pint-sized star Sunny Pawar were among the Oscar hopefuls in attendance. Joining them was a slew of TV talent poised for SAG and Globes attention, including This Is Us’ Chrissy Metz, American Crime and The Leftovers’ Regina King, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom, UnReal’s Constance Zimmer, Documentary Now!’s Fred Armisen, The People vs. O.J.’s Cuba Gooding Jr., Life in Pieces’ Betsy Brandt, Veep’s Tony Hale and Timothy Simons, Casual’s Tommy Dewey, and Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry. With DJ Kiss on the beats, beverages flowing freely, and a stunning south-facing view of L.A. as their backdrop, guests stayed loose and lively for hours.

Dev Patel might be getting the Oscar buzz for his emotional role in Lion — a film based on the true story of a man named Saroo who was separated from his family as a boy in India only to be adopted by an Australian couple — but it’s his co-star Sunny Pawar, who plays his younger counterpart, that's winning everyone's hearts. His presence at last night’s Vulture Awards Season party at the Sunset Tower Hotel was no exception. Vulture chatted with the 8-year-old while he was getting a piggyback ride from his translator. “Very nice!” he said in English, when we asked him what it felt like to try out for the role. “I was scared during the auditions,” he continued in his native Hindi, speaking through his translator. “But I’m a brave, brave, brave boy.” And he was quick to name his favorite parts about filming: “The spoon scene, the train scene, and all the running scenes.” Is that because he likes to run? “Of course!” he exclaimed in English before graciously offering a parting handshake, still perched on his translator’s back.

This week on The Awards Show Show, Vulture's Kyle Buchanan and the Frame's John Horn discuss what makes for a good Oscars host. Which prior hosts should new pick Jimmy Kimmel learn from, and whom should he endeavor to be least like? (One of our picks is likely to surprise you.) Then, Arrival director Denis Villeneuve has finally come to town after shooting Blade Runner 2049 with Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. He'll drop some tantalizing teases about that movie, talk about Arrival's surprising post-Trump strength, and talk about the significant way the Oscars altered the course of his career.

An excerpt from the conversation about Jimmy Kimmel follows; listen to the episode below, and subscribe to The Awards Show Showon iTunes.

As a director, Gareth Edwards can do big — that much, he's amply proven with films like Monsters and Godzilla. Still, it doesn't get any bigger than Star Wars, and tackling the franchise's first spinoff, Rogue One — which follows Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and her ragtag team as they try to steal the plans for the Death Star, thus setting in motion the very first Star Wars film — presented its own set of formidable challenges. Edwards recently rang up Vulture to explain how he managed it, tout the film's diverse cast, and clarify all sorts of reports about how much the film was revised during production.

It's happened to all of us: You open the newspaper, looking to check out when the new movie Lion is playing at the local movie theater, because you heard the little kid in it is really adorable. And then you see the director's name: Garth Davis. Wait, you say to yourself — isn't that the guy who directed Rogue One? Or is he the one who directed Sing?

Remember how two separate O.J. Simpson epics held our attention all year? The same thing might happen sometime soon, only this time with Roger Ailes at the center of Hollywood's attention. In addition to the previously announced TV miniseries, there's now another project in the works about Ailes's ouster, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Annapurna Pictures has signed on to produce a pitch from one of The Big Short's Oscar-winning writers, Charles Randolph. In this go-around, Megyn Kelly's story will be the star: The pitch is said to center on the women whose sexual-harassment allegations brought the former Fox News chairman's reign to a screeching halt. Looks like Ailes is about to be juiced.

A picaresque set during the 2008 financial crisis that involves a dodgy mortgage, if All We Had were a financial story, it would be a 99 Homes B-side, or the gritty underbelly of The Big Short. But it’s a relationship story, one where a parent comes of age at least as much as her child. Based on the 2014 novel by Annie Weatherwax, All We Had narrows focus to the transient mother-daughter relationship at the heart of the story.

Every week between now and February 26, 2017, when the winners of the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year's Oscars race. In our Oscar Futures column, we'll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who's up, who's down, and who's currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.

On Sunday, the trailer for the eighth addition to the Fast and the Furious family will make its debut, which is fantastic news for fans of Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren in fast cars. But it's perhaps the worst news for word nerds because it also means the introduction of yet another ridiculous movie title in this, the most ridiculously titled of franchises. Fast 8 is no longer Fast 8, as Vin Diesel repeatedly said it was. Behold: It is now The Fate of the Furious. It's a title that's this close to being perfect: Imagine the world in which the Fast franchise took a big bite out of its own cheese and named the damn thing The F8 of the Furious. Or — if all that NOS has really clouded your brain — just F8. Never forget that this series started in 2001, when abbreviating words with letters was only half embarrassing. Embrace your history! Take the nostalgia bait! It's what Paul Walker, and by proxy Vin Diesel, would've wanted!

In Frank & Lola, the first feature from writer-director Matthew Ross that debuted this year at Sundance, Michael Shannon plays the titular Frank, a Las Vegas chef who meets the titular Lola, played by Imogen Poots. Love ensues, as does jealously, noir, and a whole lot of cooking. Shannon, of course, is great, and you can see that in this exclusive clip from the film, in which Frank doesn't have to say much to convey exactly how he feels to Justin Long's Keith. Frank & Lola hits select theaters and VOD today, so you can find out for yourself whether Long survives this encounter or not.

Remember Sully? Your dad definitely does. And so do all of his over-50 friends: AARP The Magazine has named the Tom Hanks movie among its best films of 2016. "This year’s Top 10 list tackles the subject of complex human relationships from all angles," saidMyrna Blyth, SVP and editorial director for AARP Media, "family ties, grownup love, and longtime friendship among them." Indeed, Sully has all of those things, plus time for bathroom breaks. The AARP will choose one movie from the "Movies for Grownups" short list to take the organization's top honor. See the full list below.

The last line of the new War for the Planet of the Apes trailer really says it all, doesn't it? In the third installment of the latest simian trilogy, Woody Harrelson's Colonel intones a grim preamble to the all-out human-ape war, a speech which honestly seems like it's setting the humans up for failure. Maybe don't declare one battle your last stand when you're going up against an army of sentient apes fighting for their hairy lives? In the trailer, our primate protagonist Caesar must wrestle with his debasement at the hands of man and the prospect of genus-wide annihilation, as well as the care of a little human girl. Makes eating bananas and gamboling around the jungle look reeeeeeal good in comparison. The movie is scheduled for release July 14, 2017, after which all humans must abandon the trappings of civilization and take to the trees, which most of us were pretty much ready to do anyway.

For the film industry, a large chunk of 2016 was notably encompassed by the revelation that Nate Parker, the director of the Sundance sensationThe Birth of a Nation, was accused (and eventually acquitted) of raping a female college classmate in the late 1990s. That controversy, coupled with the even sadder revelation that the female classmate in question committed suicide due to depression in 2012, quickly slashed the film's chances of any type of awards show recognition. While many have suggested not seeing The Birth of a Nation as a form of protest, Mel Gibson — who's a little familiar with controversy himself— says he supports Parker.

For 30 years, Martin Scorsese's Silence seemed like a myth, a movie always bobbing just out of reach. The project was always next on Martin Scorsese's to-do list: Silence would come after Gangs of New York, after The Departed, after Hugo. Now that the epic examination of faith and holiness — based on a book by Shusaku Endo — is due this month, The Hollywood Reporter got to the bottom of the story behind the wait. The short version: legal drama. The long version: lots of legal drama.

The 27-year-old director Xavier Dolan packs more into his years than most people — after all, he's already helmed six movies, and his lovely and galvanizing 2014 entry Mommy was an award-winning Cannes Film Festival sensation — but even by his own high standards, 2016 was quite the annum. He returned to Cannes this past summer with It's Only the End of the World, a drama based on the play by Jean-Luc Lagarce about a dying writer (Gaspard Ulliel) reuniting with the awfully fraught family he left behind ages ago. After the film's contentious press premiere, Dolan scrapped with its critics online and threatened to quit filmmaking, though the Cannes jury awarded Dolan the Grand Prix days later in a move that stunned festival oddsmakers and gave Dolan the last laugh. Since then, Dolan (who also recently directed Adele's video for "Hello") has has started shooting his first English-language film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, which has a sprawling, starry cast that includes Kit Harington, Jessica Chastain, and Natalie Portman. It was during a break in that film's production that I met up with him twice in Los Angeles to discuss It's Only the End of the World — Canada's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Film — and so much more.

At this point, a Spotify-like game changer has yet to arise in the world of movie rentals. A number of platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Google, all allow customers to pay a fee to rent films, but they all respect the 90-day theatrical-release window that's been an ironclad feature of movie distribution. But it sounds like Apple could be making a play to change that, a move that would help prevent it from becoming second fiddle to a competitor like Spotify in another digital-media realm.

One of my favorite things about Dorothea, the character Annette Bening plays in Mike Mills's divine new film 20th Century Women, is that she's curious. A single mother raising her son in 1979 Santa Barbara, Dorothea has become a little set in her ways — at this point in her life, she knows what she likes and what works for her and she's got no shame in leaning into that — but at the same time, she's so eager to understand the people around her and the ever-changing cultural climate. At 55 years old, she still wants to learn. You'll see that curiosity on display in this exclusive clip from the movie, where Dorothea and one of her boarders, William (Billy Crudup), decide to listen to some current records while her son is out. First up is Black Flag ... and the way Annette Bening winces through that will give you life today. The next record, though, is Talking Heads ... and Dorothea finds herself so much more amenable to it that a dreamy dance party breaks out. Join in on Christmas, when this Oscar contender starts making its way into theaters.

There’s a new Star Wars movie on the way, which is a phrase we’ll say every year until our planet’s crust peels off into a billion little meteors that bathe the solar system with flickers of brief light before fading into the void. It’s called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and you may have noticed that its posters have a distinct lack of any actors you remember from the existing flicks in the franchise. There’s a stony-eyed woman who towers above them all, visually declaring her importance in the film. Her name is Jyn Erso, she’s played by Felicity Jones, and if you’re wondering what her overall deal is, allow us to briefly lay it out for you.

We’re just a few days away from the release of the cumbersomely titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s the latest entry in the Star Wars franchise, which will continue to release installments every year until humankind is naught more than forgotten dust scattered in the cosmic wind. Unsurprisingly, Rogue One has been the subject of a brutal publicity blitz for nearly a year ahead of its December 16 release date, as per Star Wars tradition. But despite that massive exposure, the movie's marketing campaign has done a questionable job of explaining some really basic aspects of the movie’s premise. If you have simple questions you’ve been afraid to ask for fear that nerds might mock you (what a world we live in!), we’ve got you covered here.